A friend who is a Bannthegn asked me to make her a wreath for her laurel ceremony. Her persona is from 15th century Florence. I looked, but could not find any depictions of anyone wearing a laurel wreath on their heads from her time and place; however, there are many extant metal Greek wreaths, and there are depictions from the Roman era of people wearing what appear to be metal wreaths on their heads. I chose to use this Hellenistic Greek wreath as a model and made a few changes. I couldn’t afford gold, so I used brass. I adapted the “wild” Greek wreath to have more of the “orderly” Roman aesthetic (seen in this example which, while from Roman period Egypt, seemed to be somewhat representative of the style I was finding). I replaced the metal berries with pearls as her gown was embellished with pearls and they were more her style. The rest I tried to keep close to the original.
Materials: thin brass sheet, several gauges of brass wire, freshwater pearls, flux and solder.
Andromeda of Sparta 